Radioactive
by ShadowStar91
Summary: Inspired by the Imagine Dragons song. 'Waking up to ash and dust' Naruto finds himself in a world after the apocalypse. Lost with no idea what happened or where to go when almost everything he ever knew or loved is gone or changed, the blond jinchuriki will show all the survivors that all you really need to survive is your guts and the will to never give in. Pairing undecided
1. Chapter 1

**01 - Waking Up**

_**"You will live Naruto! Live and fight!"**_

Naruto gasped as he opened his eyes and sat up, clutching his chest. However he quickly tipped over to his side as he began coughing uncontrollably, understandable as he was surrounded by rubble and ash the latter of which must have been what he was breathing while he was out. After he cleared his lungs and brought his breathing back under control he began to take in his surroundings as well as checking himself over for whatever it was that put him there in the first place.

Spiky blond hair that stood out messily in every direction along with bright blue eyes and three whisker-like lines on each cheek, Naruto was wearing the remains of a nearly shredded orange jacket with blue shoulders and a red spiral on the back. Underneath that was a black t-shirt that hugged his form, though it too had a few tears and holes in it. Around his neck was a black cord with a green gem on it. For pants he had on orange colored jeans, though they were just as frayed and ripped as the rest of his clothes. Tied around his right leg was a dark blue pouch that held a couple of kunai and shuriken, but far less than he normally carried. On his feet were open toed sandals. Surprisingly, while they were dirtied and worn, they were easily the best looking clothing item on him. How durable.

Getting to his feet the blond looked around, seeing he was in some kind of cavern, the roof having caved in a long time ago to let light in. The rubble he had first noticed when he awoke were actually the pieces of the collapsed roof, which he counted himself lucky to see landed next to him rather than on him. From looking up through the opened ceiing he could see dark clouds across the sky, small streams of sunlight managing to break through the gray covering to bring a few bright patches to the world below. With another glance around him, Naruto saw the broken remains of a statue on one side of the cavern with what looked like crumbled hands digging out of the ground next to it, though he couldn't tell what it had originally looked like. Seeing nothing else around Naruto climbed onto the rubble and channeled chakra to his legs to leap out of the opening above and re-enter the outside world.

"What the...? Where am I?" He muttered as he came up to see where he was. As he saw from inside, the sky was dark and cloudy with only a few beams of sunlight coming through to reach the ground below. Falling lightly from the sky itself was a light sprinkling of ash coming from a nearby volcano he could see in the distance. The area around the volcano was bare of any vegetation and nothing but barren gray ash for miles. Closer to where he was came a few dead gray trees growing up, bare of any leaves or other signs of healthy life. The few trees thickened as they neared his location until a few hear and there began to show signs of life with a few leaves up until they actually reached were he was, where despite the light coating of ash they looked alive. A bit weak perhaps and struggling to survive, but alive nonetheless. Spinning around behind him showed that the farther from the volcaon things got the more alive they looked, as well as the clearer the skies got.

The blond couldn't see or hear any animals or life though, and that worried him. In fact he heard nothing at all outside of his own breathing. He channeled chakra to his ears to better his hearing but still had nothing, making him frown. Where had all the life gone? And where had the volcano come from as well? He remembered slightly from his history lessons that there were no active volcanos in Hi no Kuni. In fact, there were none on this half of the continent period. So where was he? And how had he gotten here?

The blond sat down with his legs dangling over the edge of the hole in the ground as he cast his thoughts back, trying to remember just what had happened to him before this. He was a genin of Konohagakure no Sato and almost fourteen years old. He had left on a training trip with Jiraiya of the Sannin to grow stronger over the course of two years after a failed retrieval mission to recover his teammate and friend Sasuke Uchiha. He'd only been out of the village for a week before some strange men had come to Jiraiya with some whispers that made the man get deadly serious in a heartbeat. He had ordered Naruto to stay in the hotel room and seeing how serious the man was the blond obeyed. Someone had knocked on the door and remembering the last time that had happened, Naruto had pulled a kunai out before cautiously opening the door to see... nothing.

Not that there was nobody there, Naruto was sure there was, but rather nothing in that he couldn't remember what happened next. In fact, thinking back as hard as he could, all Naruto could make out was pain and a voice shouting something at him before everything went permanently dark. Whatever had happened, he didn't know. The next thing he can remember is waking up a few minutes ago. Clearly something had tampered with his memories. Whether it was a side-effect to the pain he can remember or purposefully done through a jutsu, the teen didn't know. In fact, he didn't even know how long he'd been knocked out. It was night when he had opened the door back at the hotel, but it was obviously day now. That meant at the very lowest he had been out of it and missing for half a day. But that was only at the lowest. Considering how hungry he was and how weak he felt, it was far more likely he had been gone for a few days, maybe weeks at the worst.

"Well, nothing to do but try and find Ero-Sennin. Or get back to Konoha if I can't do that." Naruto muttered to himself as he stood back up. Looking down at his torn clothes the blond grimaced. "Maybe I better find some new clothes while I'm at it." He tore off what remained of his orange jacket and held it in front of him. "Damn... I really like this jacket too." However as he held it up he noticed something about it that he hadn't before. It looked... smaller. In fact holding it against his chest he was surprised to find that he had even fit into it. It seemed like it was a size or two too small for him. Looking down his body he could tell the same was true for his shirt, pants and shoes. They were very tight on his body, the pants were also only down to just above his ankle at lowest. It was as if he had grown while he was out. "I know I wanted a growth spurt before but couldn't it have waited until I was near a clothing store?"

Shaking his head Naruto glanced around again hoping to orient himself and find his direction, but failing that he shrugged and chose a direction at random. Eventually he'd find a road or a village. Then he could figure out where he was and from there he could find either his sensei or his home. Both worked for now.

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX**

It was a few hours before Naruto reached a road and started following it. During that time the bond had occupied himself by trying to figure out what had happened or where he was. While he made no progress on either, he was also hoping to find some kind of life in the area outside of trees and a few small patches of grass. He had still yet to hear any other signs of life, though the trees surrounding the path looked healthy enough to him. Where were the birds, or squirrels, or other forest creatures he should've been hearing? The road he was on also looked as if it hadn't been traveled on in a long time, another suspicious thing to take note of.

"Just where am I? Where is everybody? Hell, where is anything in this place?" The blond muttered as he lightly jogged down the road. He could've taken to the trees like a shinobi normally would but he was hoping that by sticking to the path he may run across someone and be able to ask them where he was. Had he done so from the trees, he may have terrified the person into running or attacking. This way, they saw him coming so they wouldn't be scared. Hopefully.

It also let him pace himself for far longer. While tree hopping was second nature to any Konoha ninja, it still took more enrgy than the jogging pace Naruto was setting for himself. Well, jogging for a ninja. To a civilian, Naruto would be as fast as they were when they ran full out. Still, it let Naruto conserve his strength for when he needed it, something that was crucial considering how hungry and weak he felt.

"Is that a... Yes! A town! Finally." The blond cheered as his better than normal shinobi eye-sight picked out buildings in the distance. Now knowing he was getting near a town the blond let out a smirk and picked up his pace slightly. Hopefully he'd get his answers now.

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX**

"What happened here?" Naruto gasped as he came into the town. Or rather what was left it.

The town was mostly worn down and broken buildings all around. He couldn't see a single one that wasn't at the very least cracked in multiple places. Windows were shattered or missing entirely, doors were kicked in more often than not, and roof were missing tiles or had gaping holes in them. It was as if someone or something had attacked the town and felt that destroying everything was the best course of action.

Another thing worrying Naruto was the lack of people. Just like out in the forest, there wasn't any life he could hear or see. There were a few tracks here and there, but they looked somewhat old and faded. As if the people who left them had left a few weeks ago had narrowed eyes as he looked around, hoping to find someone.

"Hello? HELLO?" He shouted, only to hear his echo return. With a sigh the blond started looking through the windows, thinking maybe he could find a clothing store or something else that could get him supplies. And if he found someone then maybe he could ask them his questions. Going through the streets he eventually came to the village square. Still having chakra channeled to his ears, Naruto froze as something other than his breathing or steps came to him. Standing still and closing his eyes, the blond focused as hard as he could before he was sure of it.

Something was nearby.

It sounded slightly like something brushing against wood. However it was too irregular to be cause be a breeze. There was also the fact there wasn't a breeze to begin with to move anything which only added to his certainty. Narrowing down the source of the noise was simple enough for someone trained in the shinobi arts and he soon found himself in front of one of the broken down buildings just past the village square. Naruto lightly opened was was left out of the door as he looked around and decided to call out again. "Hello? Anyone here?"

There was a gasp before a dull thud came from somewhere in the house. "Help me, please! They locked me up!" Naruto's head snapped to the floor underneath a large torn couch, letting him know the house had a basement. The voice also belonged to a girl that sounded to be around his age. The fear in it was so clear that one didn't need ninja training to identify it.

"Don't worry, I'll get you out of there in just a sec." Naruto called back as he rushed over and shoved the couch out of the way. Underneath was some very worn and scratched wood with a small metal circle embedded into the floor. Grasping the circle pulled it up so he used it as a handle to life up a trap door to see a set of stairs leading down. The blond narrowed his eyes at how dark it was, only seeing a few specks of light below from tiny holes in the floor letting it shine through. Drawing one of his few remaining kunai Naruto held it in reverse grip in his right hand before descending the steps. As he reached the bottom he looked around to see a brunette tied with ropes around her wrists to a post in the center of the area. There were a few dirt smudges on her face and her clothes were a torn and ragged one piece torn off at the knees. The original color might have been blue but now was so worn and dirty it came off as gray flecked with brown. On the floor surrounding her were a few red smears Naruto took to mean blood. The girl herself looked to be around seventeen or eightteen, and he face lit up in a grateful smile as Naruto came into view.

"Oh thank god. I thought I was going to be stuck here until they came back!"

"Are you alright?" Naruto asked as he walked forward, still looking around for anything or anyone else but finding it was too dark to really see past the bright light let in from the stairway.

"I'm fine now."

"Are there any others around?" Naruto asked as he untied her wrists and she rubbed them a little to bring the circulation back.

"Maybe, there might be. I don't know for sure." Naruto nodded his head and made one more sweep around the area before turning back to her with a small smirk. He opened his mouth to say something but was surprised when the girl instead latched onto him with her arms around his neck and kissed him. The blond instantly blushed and stumbled back a step, though the girl held her grip on him so that the kiss wasn't broken and that he didn't fall. After a couple seconds she pulled back. "My hero..."

"I... uh that is... I mean..." Naruto stuttered out, his mind trying to reboot after getting such a passionate kiss from a stranger. The girl giggled and that seemed to snap him out of it as he shook his head briefly before looking to her smiling face. "Uh, right. Not a problem." He then glanced back at the stairs and jerked his head towards them. "What d'ya say we get out of here huh? I've got a few questions I need answered and maybe you can help me. I promise nobody's going to hurt you while I'm around."

"Oh thank you so much hero." She cooed in his ear making him shiver slightly from her breath on his ear. This was totally unexpected to the boy and a small part of him was even saying he shouldn't encourage her. Another part was whispering this was the kind of thing he'd always heard about in the childish stories; the hero coming in and rescuing the damsel just to wisk her off her feet and live happily ever after with her. While his heart was focused on his teammate Sakura, it wouldn't hurt to at least enjoy the company of the girl. Just so long as nothing major happened. If she wanted something like that, he'd let her down gently about it. Taking her arms off his neck she spun him around and gave him a slight push towards the stairs. "Well lead the way hero. I'll try to answer your questions when we're somewhere safe. This basement gives me the creeps."

"Yeah, me too." The blond quipped back as he started walking forward with her following. "By the way, my name's Naruto."

"I'm Akira." She replied as they headed up the stairs and exited the building. However Naruto froze at the door as he found his way blocked by four men with knives in their hands glaring at him. The blond readied himself to fight his way out when he crumbled to the ground from a hard hit to the back of the head, Akira's voice being the last thing he heard. "Sweet dreams Naruto."

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX**

Conciousness returning for the second time that day, Naruto wearily opened his eyes to see that night had fallen. A few feet in front of him was a roaring fire, with the men and Akira sitting around laughing together at something that was said before he woke up. Trying to move made him see that his feet were tied together while his hands were also bound at the wrist. He hands were furthermore pulled up and tied to something above him as he was literally standing on his feet, having just enough slack in the rope so that his feet were fully on the ground but enough pull so that if he tried to pull his hands he'd lift himself up. Groaning at what had happened drew the attention of the present company before him, making them grin all the wider seeing he was finally awake.

"Welcome back, Naruto was it? How'd you like your nap?" Akira asked as she stood and he grunted slightly while drawing a glare on her.

"You tricked me. You weren't in any danger at all."

"What, you just now realized that? And actually, I might have been in danger. If nobody had come along, I would've starved staying tied up alone down there." She joked, both knowing full well she'd have been fine since her 'captors' would've fed her. Said men laughed at her joke as she waved a hand to quiet them down while she looked Naruto over. One thing that drew his eye though was the necklace she was wearing.

"Hey, that's mine!" He shouted as he saw the green gem around her neck and tried to move forward to grab it. Akira took a step back while mockingly tutting the boy and waving a finger at him like one might do to a smal child.

"Now now, I got it off you fair and square. Salvage rights and all that."

"It's not salvage if the person's still alive damnit!"

"And you're going to die, so what if I take my claim early?"

"What?" Naruto gasped as she grinned again and motioned to the fire.

"Been a while since we've all had a good meal. You look a little tough but I bet with a bit of time we can cook that right out." Naruto was now staring at her in shock as a few of the men behind her licked there lips while staring at him.

"Y-you're going to eat me?!" He cried in fear. While he had heard about cannibals before, even read a couple stories with them involved, he had never met one before. Trying to step back didn't work as he was tied practically to his spot as Akira walked back up and teasingly ran a finger over his cheeks.

"Oh don't say it like its a bad thing. Lots of people have turned cannibals after the world went to hell. Kinda had to to survive and all. Don't say you wouldn't have done the same thing had our positions been reversed."

"I wouldn't have! That's sick!" He shouted back as she shrugged.

"Eh, whatever. Now make sure you scream real loud okay? It helps us work up an appetite." She mocked before stepping away as two of the men came forward to grab him. Growling Naruto figured he had enough and decided to fight back.

When one of the men was close enough the blond jumped up and drop kicked him in the chest, making him fall back. The rope holding Naruto snapped as he fell back making him land hard on his back with a loud 'OOF!'. A strong but quick surge of chakra allowed him to snap the ropes binding his limbs and rip them apart so he quickly flipped back to his feet to see Akira staring at him with wide eyes. "KILL HIM YOU BASTARDS!" She screamed as the men rushed him.

"Not this time." Naruto muttered as he ducked under the punch from the first man to knee him in the gut. As he folded over Naruto's leg the blond linked his hands together to drive them both into the back of his head. The man collapsed unconscious so Naruto stepped up to take out the next two while the one he originally dropkicked was getting back up. Jumping up Naruto snapped a kick into a mans' jaw forcing him to stumble back and likely knocking out a couple teeth as he ducked the second he landed when the other man tried to grab him. Pushing chakra to his fist, Naruto snapped out a punch at the mans' knee, jerking it violently sideways with a loud crack to signify it's breaking. The man screamed as he went down clutching the limb while Naruto sprang back to his feet and grabbed the incoming fist of the first man he hit. With a twist he pulled the man in and rammed him in the chest with his shoulder before picking him up and tossing him at the man he had kicked earlier, knocking both out and down to the ground.

"Shit!" Akira cursed as Naruto took out her men. The blond then walked up to her and she stumbled back in fear, falling down on her back and trying to crawl further before freezing as he made a cross with his fingers and she suddenly bumped into something. Glancing up she saw an identical Naruto standing right above her glaring down making her jaw drop. "You're a ninja?!"

"Yep. Still wanna eat me?" The original quipped as he walked up. "My necklace." He ordered as he strecthed a hand towards her. Akira quickly pulled the gem off and tossed it to him so he slipped it back on himself with a sigh.

"What're you gonna do to us? To me?" She fearfully asked so while the clone stayed standing at her head the original crouched down so he was closer to her level.

"You're going to give me back my supplies and then you're going to answer a few questions for me. Got it?" She nodded her head and pointed back near the fire. Jerking his head the clone walked over and found his kunai pouch still filled with the weapons it had held before, even replacing the kunai he had taken out when he had 'rescued ' the woman. The clone tosed it back to him and he caught it with one hand before pulling a kunai out and spinning it slightly on his finger by the ring before flipping it up and grabbing it in his hand and pointing it at her. "Oh, and you had better not lie to me, understand?" Akira nodded so Naruto asked his first question. "Where am I?"

"This is all that's left of Totoma village." Naruto narrowed his eyes at that as that was the name of the village he had been in before everything had happened to him.

"What happened here?" He asked, thinking that may shed some light on things.

"After the monsters started showing up and attacking, people began running away or going insane. We're really all that's left and we had to turn to cannibalism when the food ran out and wildlife vanished." He really must've been out for a while for all of this to happen while he was gone.

"Last question; which way to Konoha?"

"East. But why would you want to go there? It's ruined and in even worse shape than Totoma. Rumors say that some of the monsters actually came from that place and all the other shinobi villages." Naruto shook his head and stood back up as his clone dispelled itself in a puff of smoke.

"I don't know about that since I'm from Konoha, but I'm pretty sure I can get all my answers there since I don't know where my sensei is." The blond muttered before glancing back down at Akira.

"What're you gonna do to me now?" She asked and he stared for a second before walking away.

"Nothing. You may be a bitch but I did promise you wouldn't be hurt while I'm around and I keep my promises." He told her as he walked away. The girl seemed to breakdown into tears at her good fortune for not getting hurt or anything else unsavory while Naruto ignored it and left the village. He had to get back to Konoha now. Her answers were more confusing than he expected and only brought up more questions. But perhaps in the village of his home, his fellow shinobi could explain everything better.

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX**

**Authors Note: **This one literally came to me in a burst of inspiration while listening to Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. After the song played a few times while I was typing my other Naruto fanfiction, I just came to the thought of what if the Naruto world went through an apocolypse of some kind. What would the survivors be like? What would the world have become? How about our favorite characters? How would they cope and adapt? And then a small plot started forming in my head and I talked it over with a buddy of mine that's a fan of horror and apocolypse books and he gave me some input and suddenly I have the basics of this all thought up. Thus, I'm going to put it out there for everyone to read.

As it was originally inspired by the song Radioactive, I named the fic after it. Plus occasional things will referrence the song throughout the fic. Like for instance, the first line in the song is 'Waking up, to ash and dust'. Hence the title of the chapter and the fact Naruto woke up surrounded by ash covered rubble. Sometimes it'll be chapter titles, other times parts of the story itself; I'll make sure to referrence my inspiration every once in a while.

Now for pairings. Currently, Naruto is undecided. In fact, I'm actually willing to take suggestions on that. I'm not going to pair him with Sakura as I have other plans for her, just as I'm not pairing him with Hinata as my plans for her won't allow much more than a brief relationship before things change. So if there's someone you want Naruto with then feel free to suggest a girl and tell me why you think they'd work together. However I just have a couple rules. One is don't suggest a filler girl like Yakumo, or Koyuki, or Shion. None of them. If they never appeared in the MANGA then they are filler and I won't even look at them. The second is that you hae to actually explain your choice. Don't just say something like: 'Oh put him with Ino!' and then leave it at that. I want your reasoning as to why I should put Naruto with the girl.

Oh, and it will **NOT** be a harem. Ever. So don't ask.

I think that's everything so please review and favorite!


	2. Chapter 2

Aw... only five reviews? I wanted more. Oh well, can't have everything. And now for responses, which right now is just a small bit of pairing talk. Well outside of one totally retarded pairing suggestion that made me question the reviewers intelligence and maturity, I've had two actual suggestions for who Naruto should end up with.

Kurotsuchi of Iwa, suggested by _SanguineGravios_,and Karui of Kumo, suggested by _cmcwiki_. As things stand either would work well for Naruto. I had a small plan for Kurotsuchi that I'd left rather open with what happened to her afterwards because I wasn't sure yet on what I wanted done with her. It wouldn't be hard at all to adjust my plans to bring her and Naruto together. And as for Karui, I hadn't even thought about her at all as she slipped my mind entirely. When I think of Kumo all that really comes to my mind is Darui, Bee and Samui so Karui was sadly forgotten. But now that she's been brought up, I can see her actually fitting with my Naruto quite well.

So I'm still undecided on who to pair the blond with but now I've got a couple good suggestions taking up my thoughts. Nothing's been decided yet so feel free to keep suggesting others if neither of those two are your preference. I just figured it'd be nice to let people know my thoughts on the pairing suggestions so far.

Anyways, onto the chapter.

* * *

**02 - Welcome to the New Age**

It had taken a couple days of traveling but eventually Naruto had made it to Konoha. Along the way he had sustained himself with some fruits he had found as well as a single rabbit. The girl from Totoma, Akira, had said all the wildlife had vanished and she as right to an extent. It wasn't until he was at least eight miles away from the village that he began to notice a few small animals. It seemed the farther one got from the strange volcano, the more normal things returned to. The volcano itself was still a strange and confusing point for Naruto. Hi no Kuni had no active volcanos, and in fact only had one dormant one further north within their borders. However he was in the south-eastern part of the country and there was what looked to be an active one. How long had he been out and what had happened during his 'coma'?

The first thing he had noticed upon reaching Konoha was the Hokage Monument, the carved faces of the villages previous leaders etched into the mountainside. However, rather than make him smile knowing he was home again, the sight brought him dread when he saw that the faces were cracked. In fact, the Shodai was missing the lower half of his face and the Yondaime was missing his nose. It looked like the general shape of the Godaime's face had been carved in but never finished as it was a smooth featurless area save for the large crack cutting diagonally across it.

Seeing the Monument in such a state had depressed him but actually seeing the village itself had brought him to his knees. The buildings were destroyed and crumbled all over, only looking like one or two out of every twenty was actually standing. The Inuzuka and Aburame compounds had looked the worst of all while the Uchiha compound looked the best, with only a few destroyed buildings. His own apartment complex had been leveled and the Hokage's mansion was only identifiable by the red kanji for fire sitting among its own rubble.

"Hello?!" Naruto shouted, even occasionally flaring his chakra hoping the village's sensor could pick up on it. Unlike Totoma or the area surrounding it, Naruto was able to hear things occasionaly crumbling as the wind shifted an items weight and made it fall. Or perhaps it was a small animal as he had seen a couple rats and birds moving around as well. "Is anybody here?!" The blond called, hoping he didn't find another cannibal pack of people like he did in Totoma. Having seen from a distance that the Uchiha compound had been the most undamaged area in the village Naruto had been slowly working his way in that direction, only taking detours to places he knew like his own home or Ichiraku Ramen, which he had sadly found destroyed.

When he came to the wall that separated the once mightly clan from the rest of the populace he found it broken in a few sections and defaced in others with graffiti writing. Mot of the writings had disturbed Naruto with there words.

_The end has come_

_Scream me a lullaby_

_The shinobi have betrayed us_

_Curse the demons_

The words scared Naruto with what they were implying. It looked like the people may have went insane liked Akira claimed some of the people of Totoma did. Not only that but it appeared that some blamed the shinobi population of the village. The mentioning of 'demons' at first made Naruto think it was talking about him, as some of the villagers still called him a demon due to having Kyuubi sealed inside him. However he had then realized it said _demons_, as in plural. While he was _the _demon to some, he was only one making him wonder just who or what the message was reffering to.

As Naruto came up to what was once Sasuke's house when he was in the village the blond decided to walk inside as the house looked as if someone had tried fixing it as much as they could. "Hello?" He called as he walked through the door. Hearing no answer he sighed but walked through towards what had been his friends room. He made it to the door to find it open along with a messy bed, meaning either Sasuke never made his bed when he had left or someone had been there recently. The blond walked over and felt the mattress before narrowing his eyes. "Still warm..." He muttered before leaving the room and exploring the rest of the house.

Walking into the master bedroom let Naruto know someone was definitely staying in the house as the covers had been thrown off the bed and the window was open. There were few pictures and a couple of the dressers were left open, filled messily with clothes, clothes Naruto was sure were not what were worn by Sasuke's parents when they were alive. The blond walked over to the dresser and sifted his hand through the clothes slightly in case someone had hidden something within them like he had hid kunai or shuriken within his own at his home for defense purposes.

"Those are mine creep and if you don't back up with your hands held high I'll jam a kunai in your head."

The blond stiffened at the voice. He hadn't even heared anybody sneak up on him. Stiffly and slowly raising his hands up Naruto took a step away from the dresser. "Now turn around." This time Naruto could tell it was a young woman speaking as he was paying attention. With pause for a deep breath Naruto closed his eyes for a second and spun around as both him and his would be attacker gasped in unison. "N-Naruto? Is... Is it really you?" She asked as she walked up and he let his hands fall to his sides in shock. She shakily raised a hand to his face and placed it on his cheek before twitching it back when she touched his skin. She did it again though she kept her hand on his face the second time without the twitch. "You're really back... You're really here..." She muttered to herself as her eyes teared up and she suddenly latched onto him in a bear hug as she let her tears fall on his chest. "It's really you! We all thought you were dead! You're finally back Naruto!" She cried as Naruto remained frozen as the girl cried on him and hugged him. The reason he was frozen was because he knew the girl, though she had changed somewhat.

It was his teammate Sakura Haruno.

Only, it was an older Sakura Haruno than he remembered. When he had left she was thirteen, with short pink hair and (though he'd never say it out loud) absolutely no breasts to speak of, making her flat as a board. She was also only slightly taller than him and was always seen wearing a red one piece with white trim and a white circle on the back.

This Sakura however looked to be nineteen or twenty, was a couple of inches shorter than him and had grown in the chest department, though they were still small compared to say Tsunade. Her short pink hair was messy and her green eyes were a little darker than he remembered while she was wearing a red kimono top tucked into torn blue pants with a white sash around her waste that was so dirty he almost couldn't tell it had originally been white.

"S-Sakura-chan?" Naruto finally managed to stutter out as he grabbed the girl by the shoulders and pulled her back slightly to see her crying with a smile on her face.

"Yeah Naruto, it's me." She wiped her tears away with an arm as she still kept her smile up. "After all this time. We thought you were dead Naruto. And yet here you pop up seven years latter in my bedroom. I can hardly believe it..."

"Your bedroom?" He muttered with a confused look before something else caught in his mind. "Wait, back up a minute. Seven years? What do you mean seven years?" He demanded as she frowned. "I only left with Ero-Sennin a couple weeks ago, and I couldn't have been knocked out for longer than a month or so!" He argued as she was still frowning but the confusion that came to her eyes was clear as day to the blond.

"Naruto... what do you mean? You left with Jiraiya-sama seven years ago." She told him before she lit up for a second. "Wait, Jiraiya-sama! Do you know where he is or what happened to him?" Naruto let go of the girl and put a hand on his head as he tried to struggle through what he was being told.

"Seven years... how the hell could I have been out of it for _seven years_?" Well at least that explained his growth spurt and why his clothes felt so tight. Seven years was a long time to grow. The blond walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed as Sakura sat next to him and he hung his head in his hands.

"You... you really didn't know?" The blond shook his head at her words.

"I woke up yesterday morning in an underground cavern nearby a volcano and the last thing I remember before that is answering the door to the hotel room I was staying in while Ero-Sennin was checking out something his spies told him about. Something that really freaked him out because he was dead serious when he told me to stay put and the only other time I had seen him that serious was when he was with Baa-chan fighting Orochimaru, though I don't remember that much about that since I passed out. I found my way back to the town I had been taken from to find it mostly in ruins with a few cannibals there that tricked me and tried to eat me. I beat the shit out of them before getting directions here and then left." The blond explained as Sakura frowned.

"Naruto, I don't know how, but you must've been in a coma for seven years. So much has happened since your apparent blackout. I don't even know where to start."

"How about that volcano I saw? Or what happened here?" Sakura sighed and stood back up and paced in front of him.

"Well the volcano is easy to explain. The Yonbi made it."

"Yonbi?" He gasped as she stopped and looked at him.

"Yeah, Yonbi. Turns out Kyuubi was only one of nine and that sand monster Gaara turned into was another of these 'biju' things. The Yonbi no Saru is a giant lava spitting monkey with four tails. It was running around the Elemental Nations with the other Biju that were alive causing havoc and making a couple volcanos before it and the other biju just vanished one day. No clue where they went or how they left either. Just poof! They're gone." Sakura explained. Naruto himself nodded as it explained a little. He had already known about the biju before this, considering he was currently the container to the Kyuubi itself and Gaara was the container to the Ichibi. Jiraiya had told him after they had left Konoha, figuring the blond should know just what he had in him and what people like him were called, being jinchuriki. "But what happened here..." Sakura began, getting his attention back on her. "That's a little more complicated and depressing to."

"From how you acted when you saw me and how the village looks, I've already gathered a lot of people died Sakura. You don't need to hide that. Just tell me what happened." Naruto told her quietly and she sighed but nodded.

"Yeah, that's kind of obvious isn't it?" She muttered before shaking her head. "Okay, the first thing you should know about is the Cataclysm. That's when everything went to hell."

"Cataclysm?"

"Considering what you said happened to you, I'd say it had to only be about a week after that at most when it happened. From some place near that volcano you saw was a large explosion of dark chakra. Some of the older generation said it felt kind of like Kyuubi's chakra had but at the same time this was apparently at least ten times worse. A lot of people died from chakra poisoning, sensor types most of all because they could feel the chakra more intensly than the rest of us. After that..." She stopped for a second and shivered from whatever memory she was thinking of. "You really don't know what it felt like when the wave hit. It was so dark and vile. I felt sick for weeks. And it was so strong too. The chakra wave spread over the entire world. So many people died..."

"So that's why nobody reacted when I pulsed my chakra in the village." Naruto muttered and Sakura nodded distractedly.

"Yeah, that shinobi type is almost all gone... Wait you WHAT?" Sakura screamed as Naruto's words sunk in. She paled before rushing to the windows and looking outside and then running back, grabbing Naruto's hand as she did to pull him along. "Quick, we don't have much time before they get here!" She cried as she dragged Naruto behind, the boy stumbling for a second before running with her under his own power.

"Before who get's here?"

"Not who, what!" She answered as they left the building. Sakura let go of his hand at this point and started running away from the house as she pulsed her own chakra slightly as he followed.

"Wait, if using chakra is bad, why did you just do it?" He accused as she spared a second to glance back, both at him and at the house behind them.

"To draw them away from the house!" Seeing her logic Naruto couldn't fault her as he kept running with her into the ruined village. While he had no idea what they were running from he did know she obviously had to since she lived in the village. He also trusted her enough not to question why they weren't turning around to fight the thing she seemed terrified of.

"What are we running from anyways?" Naruto asked as they both heard a loud shriek from ahead of them. Sakura skidded to a stop and Naruto stopped next to her. The two were about to run back before it dropped down from on top of a building behind them. Standing at roughly seven feet tall was a large black beetle with bright blue compound eyes. It's six legs each ended in a claw dripping with a slightly smoking green fluid Naruto assumed to be acid or poison of some sort. It's mandibles were as large and long as his arm and had jagged spikes along their edge while a small horn grew out from between its eyes. Comically flapping on its back were two sets of wings the size of his head, drasticaly undersized for the beetles' girth. The beetle shrieked again as another dropped down pinning them in on both sides of the street. "What the hell are these things?"

"Remember the Aburame beetles?" Sakura asked.

"What?"

"Yeah!" She shouted as she pulled out the kunai she had threatened him with earlier as Naruto pulled his own. "People dying weren't the only changes that wave brought. Things mutated!" She told him before jumping to the side with Naruto leaping the opposite direction as the two beetles charged each other. They collided and thier horns and mandibles got stuck locked together as they pulled against one another trying to break free. "Come on! We've gotta run while they're stuck!" Naruto wasted no time arguing as he followed her as she started running again, continuing deeper into the village and away from the Uchiha compound and the home she now lived in.

"Why the hell do you still live here with those things?" He asked as they ran.

"Lot's of stuff left in Konoha to salvage if you aren't scared of the monsters here."

"You mean there's others? Besides the 'super bugs of doom'?"

"A couple." Naruto let out a frustrated cry as he followed her to what looked like it was part of the village's main street before she ducked over to a specific ruined building. "Help me clear this out. It's covering a hiding spot we use to escape those things." Naruto nodded as he raised his hands to form the hand seal for his jutsu but she slapped them down. "No jutsu! Remember they used to be Aburame beetles, they can sense and eat chakra dumbass!" Naruto had the decency to look sheepish for forgetting that considering she yelled at him for chakra usage earlier before he got to work moving debris with her. The two quickly cleared enough for Sakura to open a small trapdoor and jump in. The blond only had to hear the beetles shriek before he jumped in after her, closing the door behind him.

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX**

"So, where was I?" Sakura asked as the two sat down in an underground storeroom. Sakura had explained to him that these passages were used by the ANBU when they needed to sneak around without being seen within the village and when Naruto had asked how she knew that she had added that there was a journal in one of the rooms down here explaining it. In fact, these tunnels were used by a branch of the ANBU called ROOT, which was a secret branch of the already secretive rank only the Hokage and a couple advisors knew of. After gawking at how there was apparently an entire underground system under the village, Sakura had taken him through to a side room with a couple chairs and weapon supplies like kunai and shuriken, which Naruto had promptly raided to replace what was missing in his own pouch.

"Uh... massive evil chakra wave and people, especially sensor types, dying all over." Naruto summarized as he sat down across from her at the table in the center of the room.

"Right. Well, people were sick and dying for a couple weeks before the Inuzuka started having trouble with their ninken. At first it was small like the dogs whining and getting sick a lot. But then it escalated to them barking at everyone and growling at anybody that came close to their partners, even other family members. And then it went too far when they started biting and mauling everyone, even their partners. The Inuzuka had to put down their own partners because they had become feral beasts. Kiba... he had to break Akamaru's neck when he tried to bite his own head off." Naruto flinched at that and shook his head at how things had deteriorated. "A few of the ninken managed to escape though where they further mutated into giant hellhounds with glowing eyes and firebreath even. And when they escaped, they've gone onto breed and everything so now they run free across most of the continent, preying on anything they can get their teeth into."

"Damn..." Naruto growled as he remembered how Akira thought the 'monsters' had come from the shinobi villages. He had been hoping it was just paranoia talking but now it seemed true.

"Yeah. With the Aburame it was more subtle. At first a few members had gotten sick but then the clan would close those members off within their compound to try and help them as well as figure out what was causing it because their kikachu would get sick as well. Because of this though, nobody really knew what was going on with them until it was too late. One day a couple Aburame were actually devoured from the inside out by their own beetles before the bugs tried to attack others. ANBU put them down with a couple fire jutsu but it started happening all over the village. The Aburame that the clan had quarentined though were far worse. Their kikachu weren't killed off right away because the clan was trying to find out what was happening and how to stop it. The end result was their members dying and the beetles growing into the monsters you saw outside. They broke free of their confines and stormed through the village in search of food. Any jutsu not of the fire element didn't work against them as they'd absorb the chakra and grow stronger. Plus they can sense someone using chakra and hunt by it. Eventually some of the village was lost but they were contained to mostly the Aburame compound, which they've turned into some kind of giant insect hive. A few times the people they'd capture wouldn't be eaten but instead taken back into the compound for something. That stuff on their claws is a poison that freezes your bodies chakra so badly your muscles lock up along with it. It wears off pretty fast but it still stuns you long enough for them to grab you in their jaws and add more into your system."

The blond shook his head as Sakura explained what happened to two of Konoha's great clans. How could he have been lost peacefully in the darkness while all of this happened? How could he have not been there to help his friends? The blond shook the thoughts from his head as he still had a couple questions to ask and could always mourn later. Getting answers was more important now. "What happened to the village Sakura-chan? And the Monument? How could those bugs or a few fire-breathing dogs have done that?" The pink haired girl looked down as she answered.

"They didn't. The biju did."

"What?" Sakura didn't answer for a second and instead looked straight up at the roof as if she could picture what happened to the village in her eyes and sighed.

"It was about a month after the Aburame incident. About a third of the village had died, whether from illness, the Inuzuka ninken or the Aburame kikachu. Another third of the people were injured or in a state of depression from losing someone in everything that happened when it began. First, people coming from various points across the country started coming to Konoha talking about what had happened everywhere else, which was pretty close to what happened here. Apparently this clan from Kumo actually turned into lightning beasts and went nuts. Our own shinobi on border patrols were also claiming strange things coming from the borders. Nothing specific that I know of, but enough that Tsunade-sama upped the patrol numbers from four man squads to eight, despite the risk it left the village at with our weakness. But then a few of those patrols never returned, especially in the southeast where the volcano is. At first earthquakes started and then one day there was another chakra pulse almost as bad as the Cataclysm. It was followed by the biggest earthquake of them all and when it cleared Tsunade-sama sent out ANBU to investigate. Only two came back, claiming a volcano had erupted and that the biju were coming."

"Why did they come here? I mean, what did we ever do to them?" Naruto asked as Sakura shrugged.

"I don't know Naruto. I just know that one day the biju's four through seven showed up and started crushing everything in sight. People died, buildings crumbled, and a couple of the biju even fired off massive chakra attacks that blew up other parts of the village. The Hokage Monument was cracked and broken during the attack and... and Tsunade-sama died as well." Naruto was stunned silent by the revelation before lowering his head.

"How?"

"She and Shizune-senpai, they were trying to heal whoever they could when the Gobi no Irukauma, this giant white horse thing with five tails, came charging the Hokage building. Tsunade-sama used her strength to catch its charge and toss it out of the village when the Yonbi just shot a blast of lava over towards her. She threw everyone nearby, me included, to safety before the attack hit, killing her and crushing the Academy we had been evacuating. Shizune-senpai later died when a building collapsed on her after she ran in to get a couple civilians out." The girl explained as Naruto couldn't believe it. Tsunade, the Godaime Hokage and one of the Sannin, a woman he looked up to like a grandmother, was dead. Shizune was as well. "After about three hours of the biju just rampaging they started to leave. I don't know why nor did anybody care. They just left and we were left with a mostly destroyed village. The few Inuzuka hounds still in the village were mutated further by the biju's corrupted chakra, which is how they gained their firebreath, and the Aburame's kikachu mutated to gain the poison that coats their claws. With around eighty percent of the village dead, including some of our very best shinobi and our Kage, people lost hope that they could ever recover. The chakra left behind by the biju didn't help either. Anybody that was sick simply got worse and died nine times out of ten while others started to ge violent. It turns out the chakra had an effect on peoples minds, drawing out their hatred and despair to the forefront of their thoughts so everyone almost seemed bi-polar with their hair trigger tempers and sudden depressions. Some people even began to mutate and develop weird traits or abilities. Not a lot and some were benificial. Others were ugly or debilitating. We started calling them the Changed when it became common enough."

"Are you?" He asked as he looked back up and she shook her head.

"No. I'm still normal really. When the Changed started to show up, others started to lose their sense of reason and regress to nothing better than beasts running of on instinct. Overtime though people began to leave rather than try to rebuild. Spread out and look for other places in the hopes that they weren't as badly damaged as Konoha and such. Others ran from the memories this plac held for them now and others left simply because they had lost their sanity and didn't know anything better to do. I stayed behind with a large sized group since we figured we could rebuild and hold out. That was two years ago. We managed to fix up the Uchiha compound pretty well since it was mostly empty and left unscathed from the various problems the village was hit with. We even managed to make a few vegtable gardens and hunt the local wildlife that seeped into the village as the population went down. But over time people died, whether from sickness or getting killed by the monsters. There's only me and one other still here in the village and he's out hunting right now. We've been thinking about leaving for a while now but with the gains we've made here it's terrifying to think about starting over somewhere else. We aren't even sure if there's anywhere else we could go to. And now your here Naruto..." Sakura finished as she looked at the blond. He had his eyes closed and his head down as he tried to come to terms with everything that he was told.

The world had pretty much gone through the apocalypse. Most of the survivors had either gone insane or changed into something that wasn't really human. The ones that didn't had to contend with giant monsters and dangerous beasts just to get through the day. And from what he could gather from between the lines, everything he had known about life before had vanished entirely. His dream to become Hokage was pretty much a moot point. He could claim the title right now and it wouldn't even matter since Konoha as he knew it was gone. It was nothing but ruins for a couple survivors to eke out their lives in. The world outside was mostly an unknown tht could be better or worse and they didn't know. Everyone he knew and cared about was likely gone and he didn't have anything to his name.

"Sakura-chan..." The blond started before standing up and clenching his fists. "I don't know what I should do now but I know this: you're still my friend and I don't know the rest of the world. I want to do what I can to try and find out what really happened when I was out, what caused this and all, but first I need to learn how things are now. If you're willing to put up with me, I wanna stay here and get my bearings on this new world first." She smiled lightly before standing up herself and coming up to his side.

"Well then, I think first we should get you some clothes, since those look far too small for you." She joked before placing a hand on his shoulder. "And I know it's not the best of circumstances, but welcome back Naruto."

**XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX**

**Authors' Note: **Before anybody thinks it's going to be NaruSaku, remember I said I won't be putting them together. The reason they seem so close right now is because this is the first time Sakura's seen him in seven years, plus she's the first friendly face he's seen since waking up. As such, in addition to their friendship from before everything went to hell, they're going to be close and want to stick together. Like I said though, they are not going to be together. In fact, Sakura's already with someone, who will be brought in next chapter. Naruto's going to be a little heartbroken at first since he still has his crush on her (after all to him it's only been about a month. he's a near fourteen year old in a near twenty-one year old body thanks to his coma) but eventually Naruto will get over it and move on, though he'll still be friends with her and call her Sakura-chan mostly out of habit.

I've also shed a bit of light on what happened, from Konoha's point of view. Later in the story when they meet survivors from other villages, they'll get their perspective on things. Like for instance, it's very clear the orginal Cataclysm originated in Hi no Kuni nearby the new volcano. As such, while residents of that country are looking at it as a freak of nature accident and wonder what caused it, other countries think Hi no Kuni was trying something that went wrong and hence they blame Konoha and their country for everything.

I also set up a few other things, like the mutated creatures and the Changed. The Changed were a simple way for me to mess with other characters to make them into other things while trying to keep them true to their canon selves while the creatures were to give the world a dangerous side. After all, what kind of apocalypse story would this be if their wasn't some feral beasts to contend with? And since these are ninja, their beasts had to be stronger as well. I mean, you wouldn't expect them to be scared of a simple bear or pack of wolves would you?

So like always, please review and favorite! And send pairing suggestions for Naruto! I still have no clue to who to put him with by the end of this.


End file.
